Stevens Pass Development Plan

The January 2008 issue of the Mountaineers' monthly magazine says that Chester Marler will present the Stevens Pass development plan at the Mountaineers clubhouse (300 Third Ave. W, Seattle) on Wed., Jan. 16 at 7 p.m. There will be an opportunity for questions from the audience.

A collection of documents describing the plan can be found on the Stevens Pass website here . The "Proposed Mountain 3-D View" provides a visual summary of the proposal.

I don't ski Stevens very much so I haven't paid attention to the plan before now. But it looks pretty interesting and I think Chester's presentation may be worth attending.

I don't see how any expansion plans could be done w/o extensive parking enhancements. Boggles the mind that there would be any talk of expanding with nowhere for more cars/customers to park.

The plan has been up on the website for a while now, they are just beginning the presentation phase; perhaps they wanted to wait until after the holiday rush?

BillK- As was mentioned, Harbor owns Stevens. There is no potential for real estate development there and they don't seem to be pushing that- there just isn't any private land and their mission statement has always had "day use" in it somewhere.
Also, it was Mcaw that bought Schweitzer after they went bankrupt- for the first few years they had an agreement to let Harbor manage it but they "broke up" a couple of years ago. It was a bummer for many of us with Stevens passes since we were used to having free tickets at both (for a while it was good at Mission Ridge too!)

JackL-
As to parking, it was a few weeks ago that I noticed the MDP on the website and skimmed it, but I do recall there being some discussion of parking. (Just skimmed it again) They have paid for several studies and certainly want to add as much parking as they can get away with. I am not trying to apologize for them, but the document is there for you to read if you want. Judging a giant document by discussion on an internet chat board is a good way to stay uninformed.

The main thing to remember with these plans is that they know they don't get all of what they ask for, they plan to negotiate and start by asking for way more than they could even afford to do, then settle for something down the road. It is a game set up by the feds, and while we all lose in the end, it is the best process the parties involved have come up with. Complaining on the interweb is about the least effective thing you can do! You have to go to all those boring meetings and pay attention if you want to make a difference.

For myself, I just try to ski as much as possible with my time and I recognize that by not actively getting involved I am letting others make the decisions for me. It IS representative democracy- it is kind of imperfect, but unless you like arguing at meetings you have to admit you are refusing to help.